I've written before about serendipity - a secular word for some of the mysteries that religion and quantum physics seek to explain. This is another story of the everyday magic that seems to be blessing my life on a regular basis....

Of the thousand-plus email address I've scrolled through as I've managed PDX Death Cafe and Death:OK event registration, a few provoke a smile whenever I see them - such as "geezr.symons". When I met the man who claimed the "geezer" honorific at a Death Cafe, I was immediately drawn to his warmth. 

Geezer John also turned up at a Death:OK volunteer gathering. He couldn't take on much, he told us, because he was in treatment for a rare form of leukemia. But hearing that we planned to feature a display of origami cranes created as a suicide prevention project in Alaska, he said he could fold cranes.

Little did I know that he was already an expert crane folder. When John and his wife Ann were living in Russia he folded 10,000 cranes in protest of George W. Bush's war with Iraq. Together they had made a pilgrimage to Hiroshima, where the origami crane tradition began with A-bomb victim Sadako Sasaki. The millions of cranes that continue to flock to that site have created a conundrum for local officials.

Earlier this month I discovered a few messages from John logged as unpublished comments on the Death:OK blog. I opened up my email program to compose a response to him when I noticed an email from someone with the same last name. It was John's wife of 48 years with sad news. "Well - hard to say," Ann wrote, "but my husband was quite looking forward to Death:OK… and then he died this past week quite unexpectedly and peacefully from leukemia."

She went on to say, "I know you have a 'crane lady' but I also have some cranes from John that he was making for the event." Ann and I arranged to meet. The bag she brought me contained hundreds and hundreds of cranes, nearly enough for each of the 500 participants at our upcoming event.

I had the privilege, in visiting with Ann, of learning a bit more about John, about the war protest cranes and their pilgrimage to Japan. I admired the simple but stunning hammered silver jewelry she wore, rich in symbolism, made by John - he never sold his work, she told me, only gifted it. We talked about her work as a librarian, about the kindness of John's oncologist (who called her to check in while we were having a cup of tea), and she gave me two of John's books on mortality.

​When I told a few of my Death:OK colleagues about John's death and the posthumous gift of his cranes, one remembered that John had been the very first person to purchase a Death:OK ticket. Through his cranes, he'll be there with us.

Ann told me, "Last Friday John wasn’t 'dying' and Saturday morning he was gone. We had spent almost all day at the infusion center - he was total John that day. Thursday we had gone to the Japanese Gardens. Saturday we were planning an outing to Art in the Pearl. The human body works in very mysterious ways and while we always think we have control, we don’t. He lives on in our hearts and memories."

In a final flourish of serendipity, I had an exchange with Ann today, sharing this blog post with her. She shared with me that the day had brought her another blog post from a longtime friend who also cited John's signature cranes. In it, the friend recounts a time the two couples chaperoned a student trip to Egypt. The kids were disinterested in the WWII cemetery in the North African desert until John intervened. His friend recalls:

"As each student stepped off the bus onto sand, John handed her/him an overflowing handful of paper cranes. 'Place these on graves, and as you do, read the names and ages of the soldiers,' he said. The students walked slowly, quietly among rounded headstones, reading. Within minutes, the tan landscape was dotted with color."

With the Jewish high holy days this month, I've thought often of the phrase, May his memory be a blessing. Yours is, John, yours is.

I meet so many amazing souls in my work these days - many of them already deceased. I meet them through the stories and memories of their loved ones. I see them in the grief and in the joy with which they are remembered. They come to life before my eyes in the small rituals or elaborate ceremonies that bear witness to the fact that their life mattered.

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting Bacho, through the gorgeous eulogy written by his person, Alice Hardesty. In addition to writing this thoughtful tribute to Bacho, Alice told me, she organized "a celebration of his life with 22 friends who especially loved him, with champagne and cake. I prepared a multiple-choice quiz about his loves, dislikes, and funny habits, which allowed people to know him even better. Everybody had a great time and it was SO healing - a real celebration."

Below, excerpts from Alice's observations about life with and without Bacho, and the quiz that testifies to how well remembered he is.

"Bacho, my lovely companion of nine years has ended his time on planet Earth and begun his journey into the unknown — at least unknown to me, although it may be well known to him by now.

"Bacho was a two-year old golden retriever, border collie mix who came into our lives only a month before Jack died. Our German shepherd had succumbed to cancer in March of 2006, and soon after that Jack started to read the ads in the local paper: 'Wanted, good home for our dog.' I was hardly ready for that because I was still grieving, but Jack seemed determined to have another dog. I can’t help but wonder about his prescience. Did he suspect that I would soon be alone?

"Since that time, Bacho and I have been inseparable. We walked together every day, starting before breakfast, again in the afternoon, and a short walk before bed. Whenever I would travel, I left him with friends or hired a pet-sitter. I never boarded him in a kennel. During these walks he would meet other dogs, toward whom he was usually indifferent, but if their owners offered attention or, better yet, treats, he would show great enthusiasm, sitting in front of them, tail sweeping the sidewalk. When people would come to he door he would never bark, but instead whined until I let them in and he could make a fuss over them. He would continue whining for a while as if he were saying, 'Oh, you lovely person. Where have you been all my life?' Thankfully, he was never challenged to be a watchdog....

"My whole routine has changed. I don’t know how to start the day. It used to be that when I first began to stir in the morning, a head with a long nose and two big brown eyes would jiggle the mattress, and a tail would thump softly against the bed. Now there is only stillness.

"Sometimes the loss of a beloved pet is a strange sort of gift in that it brings up old losses that may have been floating beneath the surface for years, losses that are deeper and often more complex, losses that may need additional grieving. Losing Bacho has reminded me of the deaths of both parents and my relationships with them. And losing Bacho has naturally rekindled the grief of losing Jack. As a healing ceremony, I have placed their pictures together and say their names as I light a candle every evening. Added to my awareness is the loss of my youth and the inevitable trajectory toward debility and death. These are not happy thoughts, but they are necessary ones so as not to be dumb struck by the process when it happens.

"In the meantime, I am learning to walk the neighborhood without a dog, and I find that quite often people smile at me anyway."

Please read the full eulogy and visit Alice's web site.